Ousted Congressman sues anti-abortion PAC for “loss of livelihood”

New frontiers in campaign law? Ohio Rep. Steve Driehaus, defeated in November’s election, is suing the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, for depriving him of his “livelihood” by way of allegedly unfair campaign attacks. [Cincinnati Enquirer, Politico]

4 Comments

He is an utter fool. What is he planning to do next, ask the court to throw out the results of the election and reinstate him to his “rightful” place in the House of Representatives? Imaging if politicians were legally held to the truthfulness of their statements, such as the Alan Grayson, Taliban Dan ad. They would all be in jail!

Why doesn’t he also sue the voters of his district? After all, it was they who actually deprived him of his job.

There’s an interesting implication to this story. Politicians are one of the few groups of ‘employees’ who aren’t protected by laws forbidding discrimination in hiring or laws on wrongful dismissal. What if the courts decide that they should be? It’s an interesting thought, that applying the employment protections that everyone else already has to politicians would destroy democratic government.

[…] A former Congressional candidate in Westchester County, N.Y. is suing 16 reporters, writers, campaign officials and others for $1 million apiece, saying they unfairly portrayed him as racist. Jim Russell ran unsuccessfully in the Nineteenth Congressional District against Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), one of those named in his suit; he came under heavy criticism during the campaign over his 2001 authorship of a 16-page article in a publication called the Occidental Quarterly. [White Plains, N.Y. Journal-News] Last week we noted a lawsuit by a losing Congressional incumbent in Ohio. […]